On a news column and recent news
From the first paragraph of a recent The Irish Times column by Hugh Linehah:
“The Gaiety Theatre was abuzz on Tuesday night for the premiere of Gabriel Byrne’s one-man show Walking with Ghosts. The old Victorian auditorium was jammed and there was a sort of electricity in the air. Of course, much of this was down to Byrne’s own star power and charisma. But there was also a palpable sense that Tuesday represented a significant marker on the road to recovery for Irish theatre. After almost 23 months, it felt like a definitive reopening, unlike the false dawn last autumn during which full attendances were only permitted for a few short weeks before the reintroduction of capacity limits and the imposition of an 8pm curfew.”
Have written about Byrne a bit before; I like his movie acting. The thing that really appealed to me about this column though was it focuses on the draw of theatre in hard times, whether that is a national famine, a war with an imperial country, partial disintegration of national identity into globalization, or a closure of much socio-economic interaction from recent viruses. Ireland has been through a lot, and I think one reason it has such a vibrant theatre sector is that textual and performed drama offer some release.
On another topic…
Illegal immigration from countries around the world into the U.S. southern border has been getting a lot of news coverage. It makes me wonder because the U.S. has problems too. It is not a “crystal palace.” As T.S. Eliot said in a poem, “Place is only place.” Or as Dido said in a song, “Don’t Leave Home.” Dido’s song is very pretty and seems to be about a woman asking a beau not to move away. But it could apply to illegal immigrants.
My view on illegal immigration is it is somewhat permissible, if the people are willing to work and don’t break any other laws. But the death of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco late last decade was preventable, and the man who did it had broken multiple laws.